We've often said that a great music scene needs a great radio station to thrive. The same could be said for brick and mortar record stores. Our friends at Vintage Vinyl and Euclid Records prove that every day.

In June Amanda Palmer raised over a million bucks via Kickstarter from fans wanting to help make her new album possible. Four months later, when she invited professional musicians to play in her shows without pay, she kicked off the Great Kickstarter Backlash of '12.

When asked what music I've liked, usually I can only think of the last thing I happened to have heard that day. But for this list, I did exhaustive research, running down the 200 plus albums which gave me some amount of pleasure in the last 12 months, and deciding which ones were my very favorite releases.

Dear STL, keep being awesome. This year saw the band I'd nurtured for six years coming to an end, but a beginning to so many cool, freaky awesome bands from friends of mine. If 2012 is any indication, St. Louis music is back in a big way.